Letters of Thomas Hood: From the Dilke Papers in the British Museum [Reprint 2022 ed.] 9781978811843

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RUTGERS UNIVERSITY STUDIES IN ENGLISH NUMBER FOUR

LETTERS OF THOMAS HOOD

J^etters of

THOMAS HOOD From the DLLKE papers in the BRITISH MUSEUM €dited with an Introduction and ü^otes By LESLIE A . MARCHAND

J^ew Brunswick

RUTGERS UNIVERSITY PRESS 1945

COPYRIGHT X 9 4 5 B Y T H E TRUSTEES OF RUTGERS COLLEGE IN N E W J E R S E Y

All Rights Reserved

THIS BOOK IS MANUFACTURED IN ACCORDANCE W I T H ORDERS ISSUED B Y T H E WAR PRODUCTION BOARD FOR CONSERVING PAPER AND OTHER VITAL MATERIALS

Printed, in the United States of America

T o PLEASANT MEMORIES OF ENGLAND AND OF ENGLISH PEO-

PLE: memories of London streets and country moods and lanes; of the place names that are poetry and history combined; of bus rides to Hampstead Heath and Chingford and Hampton Court; of melody-filled Sunday mornings ringing •with the songs of street-singers and the mellow tones of ancient bells; of English breakfasts and Lyons Corner Houses and the domed quiet of the British Museum Reading Room; of the inflections of English speech on the street and in the theatre; of English hospitality and cozy coal fires—to all these and many more nostalgic memories of the country and the compatriots of Thomas Hood I dedicate this little volume of his letters.

Contents INTRODUCTION LETTERS "Go Poor F l y - " Englishman on the Rhine Sturm und Gemütlichkeit The Party "Si Sick Omnes" Shoberl and Colburn The Tuft Hunter "Fun Out of Colburn"

15 15 28 61 82 84 86 87 88

SHORT LETTERS AND FRAGMENTS Passport Ode for the Athenaeum Contributions to Athenaeum Influenza "Damn Baily" Day and Hughes "Amusing Paragraphs" The Gig and the Pig

89 89 90 90 91 91 92 92 93

MISCELLANIES-POETRY AND PROSE Drinking Song Civil War vii

95 95 97

"Ivy Crowned Bacchus" "I Must Have Meat" Generosity Towards Foreigners Cholera and Hunger Conundrums CHRONOLOGICAL T A B L E

viii

97 98 98 98 99 101

LETTERS OF THOMAS HOOD

Introduction IN THE WINTER OF 1935-36, while searching for material which would throw light on my study of the Athenaeum and its editor, Charles Wentworth Dilke, I was directed by Miss Gertrude Tuckwell, niece and literary executrix of Sir Charles Dilke (grandson of the editor), to the Manuscript Room of the British Museum where, a short time before, she had sent some letters and other family papers of the Dilkes. Though they were not yet catalogued or even mounted, the Keeper of the Manuscripts and his assistants were kind enough to let me examine these papers and make copies of them at will. Among them was a packet of letters from Thomas Hood to the elder Dilke and to Mrs. Dilke. O n the folder enclosing them was written (probably b y Sir Charles Dilke): "Six letters. These two long letters of Hood's have never been published—but the published one to Dr. Elliot of the same date [Jan., 1836] contains some of the same points." In the same enclosure was the following letter:

Master's House Temple, E. C. Dec. 20, 1897 Dear Sir Charles Dilke. I am returning herewith all the MSS. letters and fragments that you so kindly entrusted to me many years ago. I hope and believe that they are intact, & in as good preservation as when y o u lent them to me—I venture to wonder whether among the smallest & slightest 3

fragments you could manage to spare me one, as a valued autograph of Hood—which I do not as yet possess. I hope that you sympathise on the whole with my view of Hood. The Press have been so far very kind to me—in particular Mr. Quiller Couch, in the pages of the Speaker. Once more thanking you for your much kindness I remain Yours very truly Alfred Ainger Although Canon Ainger had these letters in his possession for several years while he was preparing his twovolume edition of the Poems of Thomas Hood (1897), he did not quote a line from them in his introduction, and in fact made only a vague oblique reference to one, that concerning the quarrel of Hood with his wife's family. Ainger was possibly the first and last person outside of the Dilke family to see the letters before Miss Tuckwell sent them to the British Museum. There were among the Dilke papers in the British Museum, in addition to the six letters already mentioned, several shorter ones, mostly undated, and some fragments of letters, poems, and prose sketches.1 With a few exceptions, mostly of material already published, these manuscripts are all reproduced here as they were found. 2 The two long letters from Coblenz, written closely in Hood's neat and (for the most part) very legible hand on large foolscap 1 The catalog number of the Hood papers in the Dilke collection is Add. 43,913. 2 Items in the collection which are not included here are: three poems published in the Athenaeum ("The Fall," "Miss Fanny's Farewell Flowers," and "Reply to Pauper"); a letter of Jan. 19, 1841, declining a present of ¿ 5 0 from the Literary Fund (published in Dilke's Papers of a Critic, 1875); and a few incomplete doggerel lines.

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folios, were not ordinary communications dashed off to catch the daily post, but extended and leisurely commentaries on the life in Germany which served as trial paragraphs of material which he was later to use in the Comic Annual and Up the Rhine. The composition of each letter was turned to from day to day over a period of perhaps a fortnight or more. It was an outlet for Hood such as conversation would have been to another man. Like conversation these letters run from comic to serious and reveal the attractive personality of the writer. Thomas Hood was a prolific letter writer. Perhaps less than half of his correspondence has so far been published. The two-volume Memorials of Thomas Hood, "collected, arranged, and edited by his daughter, with a preface and notes by his son," published by Moxon in i860, contains only part of the family correspondence, a number of long letters to the Dilkes and the Elliots, a few to Dickens, and some miscellaneous ones to various correspondents. It is a disappointing work because of its omissions and also because of its rather haphazard editing. Walter Jerrold's Thomas Hood: His Life and Times (1907), the only full length biography, has relied heavily upon the Memorials, as was necessary, but has added some letters from the earlier period of Hood's life and a very few from the later. Less accessible but known to be extant are the many unpublished letters of Hood in libraries in America and in England, and in the hands of dealers and collectors. But in addition to these there must still exist somewhere an even larger, and possibly more interesting, number which are yet unknown and which, if they shall have escaped demolition and incendiary and robot bombs, may one day be discovered and printed. Any attempt to make these letters more available cannot but afford satisfaction to the admirers 5

of Hood, for in the total estimate of his work, his letters are by no means to be neglected. Whether it would have been advisable to save the few letters and fragments now first published in this volume for inclusion in a larger collection of Hood's correspondence is a subject which might be argued with some reason on both sides. But it has seemed to me that the inherent interest of the letters themselves, the probable inaccessibility of the manuscripts, because of the war, for some years to come, and the light they throw, important though not tremendous, upon the life and character of Hood, are considerations which justify separate publication. In the main Hood was an entertaining letter writer. He had a journalist's sense of the interest that lies in common things and an effervescent love of fun which was constantly bubbling over in his most casual composition as well as in his published work. Punning was a natural manner of expression for Hood and not necessarily a sign of frivolity; it often crept into his most serious writing. The mixture of the serious and the comic is best to be seen in some of his long letters to his closest friends, where he displayed his personality most unreservedly. In none of his letters was Hood more at ease, more frank, or more sincere than in those he sent to his friend Charles Wentworth Dilke, whom he had probably met as early as 1821 during his London Magazine days, for Dilke had also been a contributor to that brilliant journal in the 1820's.3 In 1830 when Dilke took control of the Athenaeum, a weekly journal of literature, music, drama, fine arts, science, and every interest of the educated or cultured, Hood and 3 This is the view of Hood's son. Dilke's grandson says, however: " T h e acquaintance of Mr. Dilke and Mr. Hood dated from 1816, their warm friendship from 1830." Papers of a Critic ( 1 8 7 J ) , I, 54.

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his brother-in-law, John Hamilton Reynolds, became partners in the venture. They both (Reynolds certainly and Hood probably) withdrew, however, when Dilke in 1831 lowered the price from 8d. to 4d. against their advice. But they probably soon saw their shortsightedness, for the circulation of the magazine increased sixfold in a few days. Nevertheless they both continued to contribute to the Athenaeum for a number of years, though Hood's contributions consisted of little more than a few humorous and punning reviews, an occasional poem such as the Ode to Rae Wilson (1837), some amusing letters to the editor concerning the Comic Annual, and a series of articles on "Copyright and Copywrong" in 1837 and again in 1842. Although many of his contemporaries thought Dilke austere to a spartan extreme because he shunned the society of literary coteries in an effort to maintain the critical independence of his journal, he nevertheless had a capacity for warm and lasting friendship and a reputation for honesty and soundness of judgment. The words "Consult Dilke" in Hood's first letter to his wife from Coblenz attest to the trust which many of Dilke's intimates, from Keats to Dickens, had in him. Hood's confidence is nowhere more in evidence than in the long feverish letter from Lake House here published for the first time. And in the more intimate portions of Hood's letters from Germany there is further tribute to Dilke's good judgment and friendly understanding. It is true that while Hood, even in times of severe illness and suffering, was always full of irrepressible puns and practical jokes, Dilke was inclined to be ultraserious if not dogmatic. Keats, though warmly attached to Dilke, had once called him a "Godwin-Methodist," and one "who cannot feel he has a personal identity unless he has 7

made up his Mind about every thing." 4 But, different as Dilke and Hood were, they had a basis of friendship in many views shared in common, especially certain generous enthusiasms, a passion for public morality and social justice, as well as private integrity, and a hatred for cant and hypocrisy. So "the grave editor," as Hood playfully called him, became the warmest friend as well as counsellor of the jester who had a great core of the serious in his nature too. It is not surprising that some of Hood's most revealing letters were written to Dilke. The story of the relation between Hood and the Reynolds family can be pieced out only from fragmentary evidence. The friendship of Hood and John Hamilton Reynolds began as early as 1821 when they were fellow contributors to the London Magazine. Reynolds was four and a half years older and had been a bosom friend of Keats, and he was himself a poet of promise with a flair for satire, his most successful piece being a parody of Wordsworth's "Idiot B o y " manner in a poem which he called "Peter Bell." It was shortly after the publication of Odes and Addresses to Great People, a volume of light verse by Hood and Reynolds, that Hood married John's sister, Jane Reynolds (May 5, 1825). Jane was, as Hood indicated playfully but sincerely in the long letter to Dilke from Coblenz, an ideal wife for a man of Hood's temperament, occupation, and propensity for practical joking. She copied his manuscripts, cared for him tenderly in his illnesses, and had sufficient gullibility and no resentment for his jokes such as that of the trussing of the pudding described in the Coblenz letter. Their mutual understanding was undoubtedly the brightest flame * Letters of John Keats, ed. H. Buxton Forman, II, 466. 8

that lighted the many days of care and pain in Hood's short life. After the quarrel with the sisters of Jane, the origin of which is indicated pretty clearly in the letter of 1835 in this collection, Hood probably saw less of the Reynolds family, but there are some hints in other letters that the Hoods and the Reynoldses were on terms of friendliness again within a year or two. It is probable that Hood never quarreled seriously with his old friend John Hamilton Reynolds, though he had some disagreements, which, it may well be, arose out of the quarrels with other members of the family as indicated in the letter mentioned above. Certainly, Hood was not the man to hold a permanent grudge. Nevertheless, his biographer says that some months after his death " J a n e Hood and John Hamilton Reynolds met and were reconciled at their mother's bedside, after a quarrel of some years' standing, the occasion of which is not known." s Apparently the reconciliation did not extend to Reynolds's wife, for Tom Hood the younger says in a footnote to the Memorials (i860): " A frequent correspondence was kept up between my father and him [Reynolds], which would have afforded materials of much value toward the compilation of these memorials. I regret to say they are unavailable, owing to Mrs. John Reynolds' refusal to allow us access to them." 6 Of the other friends of the Hoods mentioned in the letters only a word need be said. The origin and nature of the friendship of the Hoods with Lieutenant Philip De Franck are made sufficiently clear in the letters themselves and in the appended notes. The same may be said for the other acquaintances and friends of the Hoods in Coblenz. Dr. 5

6

Jerrold, op. cit., 396.

Memorials, I, 11.

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William Elliot of Stratford (not Shakespeare's Stratford but the one in the environs of London) was Hood's physician and devoted friend from 1835 until his death in 1845. Though he is mentioned infrequently in these letters, Hood's correspondence with him is, next to that with Dilke, the most frank and cordial. During at least one of Hood's most serious illnesses, when he had hemorrhages of the lungs, Dr. and Mrs. Elliot took him into their own home and gave him the tenderest care. Hood's whole later life must be viewed against the background of these frequently recurring illnesses, even though he himself made light of them for the most part in his letters. He apparently had his first serious seizure of spasms in the chest in April, 1835, shortly after his arrival in Coblenz, having greatly overdone himself before he left England, and having suffered intense fatigue and strain in a very stormy crossing of the North Sea. He recovered, however, and enjoyed some measure of health until the end of 1836. In a note on his father's trip with Lieutenant De Franck's regiment in September and October of that year, Tom Hood the younger says: "These were almost the last of my father's days of health, and henceforward—although there have been occasional mentions of illness before—the letters will record the gradual but sure decline of it." 7 Indeed, it is surprising that Hood accomplished so much and remained so cheerful in the constant struggle with illness which marked the few remaining years of his life. Dr. Elliot, writing to Mrs. Hood on May n , 1840, diagnosed the disease as an enlargement and thickening of it [the heart],—with contraction of the valves, and . . . hemorrhage from 7

Memorials, I, 191.

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the lungs, or spitting of blood, recurring very frequently. There is also disorder of the liver and stomach. These diseases have been greatly aggravated of late years by the nature of his pursuits,—by the necessity, which, I understand, has existed, that he should at all times continue his literary labours. . . . The great and continued excitement attendant on such compulsory efforts, the privation of sleep and rest . . . and the consequent anxiety, depression, and exhaustion have had a most injurious effect on these diseases, bringing on renewed attacks. . . .8 Specific references in the letters in this volume to Hood's difficulties as author and editor are, I believe, made clear enough in the notes, but the general subject of his relations with his publishers and his quarrels with them has never been completely clarified by his biographers. No available extant letters throw much light on the matter, though something may be pieced together from the rather vague references in the Memorials and from other slight evidence in letters published and unpublished. What is certain is that Hood changed publishers several times during his short writing career, and that he felt himself tricked and defrauded by most of them, especially by Charles Tilt and A. H. Baily. He started legal action against Baily about 1840, and the acrimonious battle with him continued through the remainder of Hood's life. His relations with Henry Colburn, proprietor of the New Monthly Magazine, were never very happy while Hood edited that journal from 1841 to 1843. Colburn had his own underlings, such as Shoberl (mentioned in some of the letters in this collection), hired independently of the editor to do the puffing of books published by Colburn. Until further evidence is 8

Ibid., II, 236-237.

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produced it is impossible to say whether or how much Hood was to blame in these squabbles with publishers. He was probably impractical and an easy prey to sharp practices of the business world, and his fault may have been nothing more than lack of business sense in choosing his publishers, and lack of care in making agreements with them. One other matter in Hood's biography has not yet been cleared up, that of the financial embarrassments which he suffered in 1834 and 1835, mentioned in the letter from Coblenz to Dilke in this volume. The statement in the Memorials is purposely vague: "At the end of 1834, by the failure of a firm my father suffered, in common with many others, very heavy loss, and consequently became involved in pecuniary difficulties." 9 Richard Garnett adds, on what authority is not known, that Hood's losses "appear to have been due to the failure of a publisher," 10 and Jerrold, probably following Garnett, has said the same.11 Perhaps some day letters or other documents will turn up which will solve the mystery. In the meantime, the frankness of Hood's account of his reaction to that loss in his long letter to Dilke in this volume will have to satisfy the curious. Matters other than lacunae in the biography of Hood, however, have somewhat complicated the task of editing this volume. The knowledge that some at least of its limitations and shortcomings are directly or indirectly attributable to the inconveniences of war may increase the indulgence of the reader. In the first place it has been impossible to check my own copy, made more than nine years ago, with the original letters. Even though more than usual care 9 10 11

Memorials, I, 49.

D. N. B. article on Hood. Jerrold, op. cit., p. 270. 12

was exercised in the copying, it is probable, ordinary allowances for human frailty being made, that some errors have crept in. For those I take full responsibility. The best I could do under the circumstances was to follow my own manuscript copy as faithfully as possible. I am confident that my copying errors have not been many or important and that they have not marred an understanding of the matter. I have indicated omissions due to imperfections in the originals, and when a word was not clear in Hood's handwriting, I have sometimes bracketed my own guesses (with a question mark) in order to fill out the text. This has not been frequent. I have had to trust my manuscript for spelling, punctuation, and abbreviations, which (with due allowances for error again) were all copied exactly as they were found in the letters. An attempt has been made to arrange the longer letters in a chronological sequence, so far as that can be established by dates, postmarks, or internal evidence. The shorter letters and fragments are grouped together after these, and other poetic and prose fragments come at the end. References in the notes to the Memorials of Thomas Hood are to the first edition (Moxon, i860), and those to Up the Rhine are to Volume VII of The Works of Thomas Hood, edited, with notes, by his son and daughter (London, Ward, Lock & Co., n. d. [1882-1884]). It had been my wish to pay the customary courtesies to the descendants or heirs of Thomas Hood, if there be any, by asking their permission to publish these letters, but so far my efforts to establish contact with them have been fruitless. The uncertainties of wartime communication being what they are, I am proceeding without further search, hoping that if this volume should ever come to the notice of any such persons concerned they will recognize that it *3

has been published in good faith and with the desire to increase the knowledge of Thomas Hood among those who, having a sympathy for him, are his natural heirs. My thanks are due to Miss Gertrude Tuckwell, who directed me to the Dilke papers in the British Museum, and to the Keeper of the manuscripts and other staff members of the Museum, who permitted me to copy the letters. I am grateful to Mr. Walter M. Teller for the loan of certain Hood materials in his possession, and to Professor George L. Marsh for information concerning the life of John Hamilton Reynolds. And I wish to express my appreciation and thanks to Miss Joyce L. Kellogg for a critical reading of the introduction and notes and for helpful suggestions in matters of arranging and editing.

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Letters [ " G o Poor F l y - " ] Lake House, Monday Night 7. o'clock (9«* Feby) [1835] M y dear Dilke Here I sit, solus, in that large drawing-room, with a sick wife upstairs,1—a sick child in the next room to this— (Fanny 2 has sickened with the measles)—and a fly-load of company has just departed, containing Mr. & Mrs. Green & Miss Charlotte Reynolds, 3 the two children & nursemaid. As a true Philosopher I have found comforts in the three predicaments—Jane is better, enough to atone for all the rest—but then poor Fanny is ill,—yet hath her illness this relief in it, that it hath hastened away the aforesaid fly with its living lumber,—The Greens, the Charlotte, the two young Greens & their nursemaid, no slight relief to the larder of a man whose poulterer hath today refused a pair of fowls 4 —& those were people who would eat fowls if fowls were to be had. But that is a trifle to the load off my 1 Jane Hood was seriously ill following the birth of T o m Junior, January 19, 1835. 2 Fanny (Frances Freeling H o o d ) was about five years old. She was born some time in 1830; the exact date is not known. 3 Mrs. Green was formerly Marian Reynolds, Jane Hood's sister, and Charlotte was another sister of Jane. 4 Hood was in financial difficulties and his creditors were pressing him. (See p. 30.)

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head. I have had misgivings whether my anxiety for Jane might not make me somewhat rough in my remonstrances, but in a case of such vital interest, a little hardness on my part might have been forgiven—but the manner of their departure reconciles me perfectly to all I have done, so as only to leave a doubt whether I went far enough. Only the old lady 0 remains & if sometimes wrong headed she is always right-hearted, & I am sure forgives me for sometimes opposing the first characteristic. I tried to make all smooth, with Marian, with whom I had gone most smoothly,—before they went—but as she chose to consider herself insulted (i.e. that Green had insulted me,)—I let them go, without seeking or finding a farewell, feeling that such treatment of a man who has devoted himself life, soul and body to their sister's welfare, deserved something better than they could bestow, & had it already, in the recovery of his better self. M y last words were, that as they had given Jane over, they would forgive me, any offence on my part if I should restore her whole to them—a contemptuous reply sealed my feeling toward them for ever, & I have whistled them down the wind. N o one of them has worked the tithe of what I h a v e twice have I pitched headlong from my chair with extreme watching,—but still I am in heart & alert for the dear object of my efforts is I hope accomplished, yet what was done to oppress me in my sore time of trouble I cannot forgive or forget—it must be as endurable in my memory as " T h e Most Terrible T e n Days of my Life." H o w should I relish the comfort of true friends if I am not to feel & taste the baseness & bitterness of false ones? Green in defending Lotte against me chose to tell me that I had been guilty of 6

Mrs. Reynolds, Jane Hood's mother. 16

"disgraceful caballing." I, who stood alone—caballing with myself—or with the Doctors—or with my poor Wife—for I had no other confederates! M y indignation has settled into deep disgust & we shall never be well again whilst I retain my nature. I can forgive their oblivion of me, the little credit I have obtained for efforts, superhuman, in proportion to my own exhausted strength, having just got through my two books,6—though on the personal acct. I could never condescend to admit such on my list of friends —but I cannot forget that thro them or some or all of them my poor girl went thro all but the torments of hell. A curse I say on such selfish ones! Jane never saw me shed a tear, or heard a misgiving word till given over,—that true tenderness will be called callousness,—my love to her will be called hate to them,—I know what I am to expect from the style of their departure. M y comfort is I have real friends (as yourself) who know me better—& I can appeal to a very domestic life, in proof of my sincere love for Jane, & to unbiassed testimony in favour of my exertions "not to be a widower before my time." It relieves my jaded heart to throw itself thus upon yours,—to requite me for such unworthy treatment.—There—I am better—& they are worse. What a world we live in!—I am quite convinced all my theories of laughter & tears, &c.—are gospel. What think you of a rat hunt in a sick chamber? Yet was it enacted today at Lake House, & Rose killed her rat in style having hunted it under the bed to the fire-place. I believe I shall be an altered man—more of a philosopher—scorning the hollow & enjoying the real in joy or grief. I feel something of the spirit of Lamb when he wrote to me—"We have had all the world (i.e. Green) & his wife here in the last week or two 6 Tylney 1834.

Hall and the Comic Annual for 1835, both published in

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—they seem to have come I know not whence, but they have all gone & have left room for a quiet couple. W e are quiet as death, & lonely as his dark chambers. But parting wears off as we shall wear off—the great remedy is to be as merry as we can, & the great secret is how to be so." 7 Even so with myself,—emerging from the Valley of the Shadow of Death—wherein I have made a progress beset by the fair but false friends. M y dear Dilke loves me, as I love you,—or I could not write thus, with a free outpouring of spirit—you must be my ventilator—for I have lately been choked with cursed moral fogs vapours & stinking ignes fatui, bright but rottenness. An hour with you would do me good—but next to that, is this letter, wherein I do most cordially grasp your hand & grapple you into mine heart with hooks of steel. But I am rambling as wildly almost as Jane has lately wandered,—you must allow for the revulsion of feeling that seeks this vent. Times of intense stealthy agony—hours of forced cheerfulness—long nights of earnest watching, of breath & pulse,—myself a very spider as it were on the fine spun web of life—lovings, sorrowings, hopings, despairings—hope sometimes a comet, sometimes a fixed star—sometimes a shooting one, dropping suddenly from the seventh heaven—add every energy of mind concentrated to observe, understand, & discriminate the phenomena of a very nice case,—the internal conflicts, the external skirmishes,—all these & more might be my excuses for a more than usual excitement, now that a favourable result has been obtained, after a storm, during which I had seen every hope but my own driven from its anchor— Oh my God Dilke if ever I fought the good fight of faith, or had any pretentions to a mind it was during this frightful 7 This letter of Lamb is not in the latest and most complete edition of Lamb's letters edited b y E . V . Lucas ( 1 9 3 5 ) .

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struggle! There was a hope—but it was like a Romeo awaiting the revival of his Juliet in a dank charnel, of bones hideous, chokefull,—musicked by a Choir of Ravens. Love, only, love, could have stood the ordeal & it did. That will be the blessing of my life. Come what may Jane & I henceforth must be dear above dear to each other! It will be as we had passed the tomb together 8c were walking hand in hand in Elysium! Out of the fulness of the heart and of the head I write—but I am dreadfully mistaken, if you do not understand me in every word—have no fear of my firmness of mind or self command—this is only a relief, which, if you have had as kind a friend as I write to, you have sometime or other, I guess, had reason to appreciate. Moreover, I may be depreciated, misrepresented & in the tenderest point—and these my feelings will remain upon record in your hands—you will know, little as I have paraded it elsewhere, that my heart soul & strength have been engaged in the struggle that has just passed, & that whatever I may have seemed to the senseless & shallow, my dear Jane was an object that I have been diving deep after, nigh unto drowning, in the river of Life. As I sat serene & silent in the darkest hour, & cheerful in the dreariest, so even now, with people round me in common converse, my heart is singing paeans of joy for my Eurydice. It only grieves me that I cannot yet get her out of the accursed Cavern, of her Fears—to use her own words she "still smells of earth"— a shovel-full of earth's dirtiest in the dismal faces that first planted that cruel terror! She must have suffered terribly— I read most unutterable things in her face,—& curst the spell that was laid upon her spirit. Think me not mad, my dear Dilke, but I am writing of things words cannot reach. Horrors, horrible, most horrible, must have been her portion. Still, I beg, let this not pass beyond ourselves, but when we

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meet I can circumstantially prove to you what I s a y namely she was half-killed by fear, & her friends, if so to be called. You may suppose therefore that amongst the other Demons that beset & tormented me, Scorn, Indignation, anger, & I was going to say Hatred were not missing. I have not written myself calmer for I began calmly—but it is time to talk of calmer things. My best, & dearest, has been composed all day, no rambling, but a doubt how to decide between me (Hope personified,—but a unit) & "her family"—as many Despairs as Members, here. I have as it were to clear the mire from her eyes, to take the dust out of her mouth—to restore her from among that marble multitude, in the Arabian Nights. But the sweet end is this—all other troubles disappear,—& come poverty, age[?], and all other ills, with my wife & honour and poverty & my two babes, I still will love the world & thank its ruler. And now you know more of T . Hood than you could gather from a Comic Annual, or the whole series, or the Whims,8 or anything I have ever written, saving this letter,—& you will believe I am happy—tho much moved. This is one of the few outbreaks I have indulged in, thro a trying & variable storm,—& you will excuse it, perhaps thank me, for addressing it to yourself, always kindest to me in trouble, & I have therefore the less remorse in troubling you with my joy. I have not written such a Gog of a letter for years, nor have I gone thro such gigantic feelings. But it has cost me no pains—my pen ran away with me—or rather my heart with my pen. The light of my hearth is not extinguished— & I delight in the fresh blaze up of the old fuel of love. 8 The Comic Annual, written and illustrated with wood blocks by Hood, began in 1830 and continued through 1839. Whims and Oddities, first series, was published in 1826; the second series appeared in 1827.

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May my domestic agonies avert yours—a little while since I scarcely thought again to enjoy your fire side or my own. I am perhaps writing weakly, foolishly,—but it is because I have nothing to do. When called upon I was not wanting— but a heavenly rest has arrived—a calm after a storm, & thro the clearing up rack I see Home!—still Home! A word that had almost slipped out of the dictionary of my life. I have still a wife—a comfort I would have poor J . H. R. 9 hug to his heart as I do—poor fellow, I pitied him in the midst of my own seeming calamity,—for I thought of my next Star of Magnitude, my own Fanny. 10 Curse Halley's Comet! It is high unpropitious. I have not a friend whose star shines as it ought. It will gratify you both to know that Jane mentioned you both repeatedly in her delirium even—for the heart looks after the head in its wanderings, like a mother after a stray child. In hot days men open their windows, in the warmth of passion & feeling so we open our hearts to give the soul a breathing—thus you see into mine. I am becoming Coleridgean Kantean, high metaphysical,—but common-place suits not my present mood. There is much of positive & negative moral electricity to work off & I make you one of my conductors. God bless you,—I feel tonight a Rothschild who might have been a beggar, supposing one's purse of wealth carried somewhere about the left breast pocket. But I have learned to know the true metal from the base,—no Marian flash notes, no Lotte smashing, none of Green's flimsies for me. As they have voluntarily left my house, without farewell, they must not look for Welcome, which is its Irish Echo,—they are gone with Bad 9 John Hamilton Reynolds, Jane Hood's brother. (See Introduction, pp. 7-8.) 10 Reynolds had just lost his only child, a daughter ten years of age.

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Taste & Bad Feeling for their companions & black and bad be the day, that sees them over my threshold. If I love her— if I respect myself so it must be. Locke says know thyself, —and unto you my dear Dilke I entrust the key to what may be the future conduct of Yours in confidence & in true & everlasting friendship. Thos. Hood. I do not say burn this letter, but preserve it. Have no fears for me,—for till we meet, herein I bury my feelings. I ought to give you some news however, if only for the sake of Mrs. Dilke, whose kindness, like yours, I know by intuition. My views in life are changed—& would have been whether Jane lived or died, as you know, & I shall want your advice & will draw upon it at once, without scruple. [Should I be unfortunate I will drop you, for you well (this crossed out as italicized)] But I am changed. In some things my eyes are opened & my heart is shut. I disdain hypocrisy. Toward Jane I must feel more devoutly loving than on that dear day that made me her husband,—she has given me proofs of her love, from the tomb, & beyond the tomb,—I am as sure of her heart as if I now held her in heaven. But the same dreadful security that sealed that bond, hath shown me where I am not loved & no hollow professions in the world shall make me prostitute a holy passion of benevolence & goodwill, by bestowing my friendship even on the hollow & heartless. I have accompanied my Jane to the brink of the grave, & some stood there to see her into it—& when she was rescued from it, they did not joy as I do. I will not curse them—but the veriest stranger who never knew her hath more share in my regard than they have. Selah, as the Psalm says—for it is 22

getting like a psalm. M y eyes have been widely opened—to the present, the past, & the future. M y beloved seemed to see visions & so did I in reality. I know m y position. Should it ever be said,—as it may, & I think will be said—that I was no devoted husband, these pages will be in proof. M y life will be in better proof,—with the best opportunities, if cultivated, of moving in the best society, I have sought m y domestic joys. M y friends in general will do me justice tho I should be in disfavour with a few. I do not mean to submit to Little Britain 1 1 Leading Strings,—my Jane is ten times dearer to me for this trial, but some others have blotted themselves even from m y Black Book,—they will be to me, as they had never been. I take fright at the length of this letter, but m y feelings write twenty such a day. It is a comfort to me. It is a scorn, a loathing, to me to see petty spites, & passions, congregating around death beds, which are but the stepping-blocks to heaven. G o o d G o d that the presence of Death himself cannot control our most paltry passions! T h e y pretend to love m y wife, & yet but for me, & the very measures they hate me for, she would have been a victim! T h e next wife I have next to death's door, the next relation that comes next her, with a hope next to nothing and a face to match, shall enjoy the next common. This is a great big letter already—so I need not bid y o u make much of it. I have never before written such a one, & may never again. But I can never again have such cause. S o treasure it. It is a record of the present feelings at least of one y o u know & may prove an illustration of permanent opinions. I will not g o further—Jane, tonight (Monday I I A street in the old city of London near Aldersgate where the Reynoldses lived.

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12 a/m) is better & improving,—would we could all say as much. Believe me Dear Dilke Yours very truly, Thos. Hood. I mean what I write. The realities of life have come so home to me that I will not put up with its humbugs. This is henceforth the motto of yours ever. T. H . Another morning—and Jane is better. She may now be thought out of danger. I took a whole sleep last night for the first time,—& did not dream. If I had it would have been of Jane trying to swim in the River of Life with sisterly Millstones round her neck,—or to fly in the vital air, with a deep-sea lead to each leg, like those encumbered pigeons of St. Mark,—I mean those turned out from the Basilica on Palm Sunday at Venice, with weights tied to their legs. I shall love Clark's fly forever—the man who drove and the horses that drew it. Sweetly did it diminish in the distance, & lose itself thro that gate at Can Hall Lane. Then did I feel with Shandy—"Go poor fly—there is room in the world for thee and me." 1 2 There is no magic nowadays—or had I known a formula for transforming that one horse vehicle into the Andromeda, or the Amphitrite, bound anywhere,— say New South Wales,—God forgive me, but I fear I should have pronounced it on the spot! What could be their sports 12 See Tristram Shandy, Vol. II, Chap. iz. Punning was such a habit with Hood that it crept into his serious as well as his humorous writing.

2

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when children? Did they dramatize De Foe's History of the plague & go about with a tiny go cart & bell & a cry of bring out your dead! I shall never believe in hearts,—they have but two of those stone wins [wens? ] in their bosoms, as funereal & unfeeling. In strict justice & consistency, [ought?] not such death-doing thoughts & feelings to turn homeward,—making them suicidal,—filo [i/c] de se—ought not one to take laudanum or deadly nightshade & hellebore, & the other to drown herself in the blackest pool that can be found search [ ? ] England thorough—some pond in a cutthroat lane, with water as still as death & as black as a coffin, from running thro the sable mud of the Slough of Despond. Or is the despairing feeling only a show—an affectation,— born of a damnd pride—disdaining to have been mistaken, —and resenting the idea of being outgone in firmness, common sense, age & good feeling for the sufferer, by such a thing as a sister's husband—a brother-in-law! The male sex stand not on a high pedestal in L. B. [Little Britain] Fathers —Brothers—& so forth are but hewers of wood & drawers of water,—domestic spaniels to fetch & carry—& verily that Green is the pet lapdog of the house, with an ignoble collar round his neck to show to whom he belongs. He looks tame & fat. You are right about fools—give me the Knaves, with crooked heads,—they have sometimes hearts. But who can bear a fellow with a head like a cocoanut & a heart like a walnut's. As my gate closed behind them, I felt a corresponding slam in my bosom—they are shut out & for ever. This is not written in anger, under the fever of irritation, but after rest & sleep—with a steady hand & a cool head,— between them & me there is henceforth a great gulf fixed,— impassable whilst memory endures—even that dreary Inferno of Dante into which they would have dragged my Beatrice—bless her! This is bitter writing but treacled 25

words cannot flow from a pen that drips in a cup of gall, forced upon me. I have had a revelation like St. John's, by the light of the star Wormwood, when "the third part of the waters became wormwood & many men died of the waters because they were made bitter." I am not mad most noble Dilke but speak the words of truth & soberness.—It is no splenetic misanthropic mood against all the world. Warmly I feel to you or I could not write thus—& sweet, intensely sweet, is my little Goshen, as it were widened by this narrowing. Sweet it is to have been able to pay off a dividend of that tender care, nursing & devotion I owe of old to my most excellent Jane. There are harsh chords which will jar if touched upon, but there are others that discourse most excellent music, & those mute melodies are now singing in my soul, lulling many worldly cares to sleep. Have no care for me. My mind which has stood firm throughout will not fail me now. But there are times in a man's life when his thoughts become intensified, so as to review a past life & project a future in a few short hours. Such has been my case. Jane's illness will be a marked aera to me,—& will have much influence on what is to come. The exigency of the time has called forth a decision I knew not belonged to me, & I mean to cherish it. It has been a great comfort to me to think & know that I have true friends who will feel with and for me,—who will appreciate my motives & give me credit for right feeling, & consequent right conduct, in the most critical & trying crisis of my life. I know that J. H. R. was told otherwise, but I sent him yesterday a copy of the following; which I send for your satisfaction—it is from Dr. Elliot. I merely asked him to certify as to Jane, in order to contradict the sinister reports they persisted in spreading. 26

M y dear Sir. I am quite delighted to observe so much amendment in Mrs. Hood even since last evening. There is now fair prospect of her complaint going off smoothly. And you have kept up your courage surprisingly under the severe and tedious trial. Your health seems not to have suffered at all. Yours mo truly 9 th Feby. W . Elliot. M y health did suffer tho for awhile from incessant watching, which if I remitted, every good was undone again. But I kept that to myself—& fought myself well again—on Sunday I was threatened with a fit—my mouth was convulsed— & no wonder. I cannot describe my torments I will say atrociously inflicted. The cup was full enough before. I have just heard that Lotte (the worst) was to return here today. If so my mind is made up to tell her she shall not stay—I will not have my all endangered at the 11 th hour. W h a t think you of such infernal sentiments as follow. When the Dr. had said Jane was in a good sleep—the best thing for her—Lotte said to me "I hope she will wake sensible, & then pass away quietly."—And W r i g h t 1 3 heard her say " W h a t gave her horror was, that if Jane had been let alone she would have died days ago!" Damn such pestilential sensibility—Does she want a dead sister to cry over, let her give her good wishes to Marian. T h e Dr. has arrived & I will give you his report ere I close. He says she is as well as yesterday, the head, &c. well,—but some disorder of the bowels has supervened which requires care. I have just seen her—she is quite col1 3 Hood's friend John W r i g h t of the firm of W r i g h t and Folkard, wood engravers of Fenchurch Street, later handled most of the business pertaining to the publication of the Comic Annual while Hood was abroad. 2

7

lected, & conscious of the past, that there has been a struggle between me and the rest. I have had it from her own lips. And now haven't I been well beset—to say nothing of annoyances, signed, sealed, & delivered,—but which I do not feel now. God bless you and yours & keep your roof from all such visitations, [corner torn out of last sheet—signature or what?]

[Englishman on the Rhine] 372 Castor Hof Coblenz "Prosit Neujahr!" [Jan., 1836] My dear Dilke The letters came at last—on the last day of the year! Some of them dated October the fourteenth! It was an expressive silence enough but we did not muse your praise. Sometimes we thought all England must have drowned itself—sometimes we doubted we were only at Coblenz & fancied ourselves like Elia's Distant Correspondents, on those shores where "haunts the Kangaroo." There seemed a spell against those letters & with me I fear it occasionally spelt d-a-m-n. T o be sure twas provoking to Christian patience to see that infernal orange band & orange collar go so often to the very next door. The e/Zwagen1 seemed turned to winegar. First Jane fumed,—and then I did,—for which I got lectured, Madam being comparatively cool, from having fumed herself out. By way of climax, think of Mrs. L. 2 being detained nearly a fortnight with our letters at Rotterdam, because somebody in England had neglected 1 Eilwagen (express wagon or fast coach, which apparently carried the mail) forced into a pun on eil (oil?) turned to vinegar? 2 Unidentified.

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to ship [her?] luggage. In the meantime, as dumness [i/c] proceeds from deafness our not hearing prevented our writing,—Jane, particularly, who is here a strict protestant, fearing that our letters should turn catholics and cross each other on the road. However now we each have something that will answer,—and accordingly I write to you, this time, lest by addressing Mrs. D. again, I should make you a green-spectacled monster, though I have matters fitter to write to the she D.—than to the He one. At all events I will write at her, in my description of such things as Balls and New Year's Eve festivities. You were right in your prophecy about me, derived from my former letter[;] excepting a little exhaustion, partly from anxiety in getting it off, after my last box of cuts, I have regularly progressed in health, from the epoch I marked[?] of my strange malady.—Never indeed did I complete the Comic with such ease and satisfaction.3 Except that I am more in figure a Greyhound I came in like a Spaniel winning the Derby, fresh & full of running. Indeed I set to work directly on my Sketch Book with some matters not so well fitted for the annual as a sort of Bubble book I contemplate.4 I could write a monograph on Co3 The first Comic Annual (for 1830) had contributions from others, but in the nine years that followed Hood wrote all of the poems, stories, and sketches for it himself, and illustrated it with his own wood block comic sketches, no small task for a man who was ill much of the time. He seems to have invented the punning drawing which gave a distinctive character to the Comic. * "Bubbles from the Brunnens of Nassau By an Old Man," published anonymously in 1833, was the work of Sir Francis Bond Head, later Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada. It was a light commentary on German customs and manners in the spas. The "sort of Bubble book" which Hood eventually wrote was Up the Rhine (published 1840). In it he embodied much of his German experience as described in letters to Dilke and others. It is interesting to ob-

2

9

blenz. But the place is healthy—witness Jane whose legs have grown smaller, & Tom's whose ditto have grown larger—whilst my own promise to "calve" in the spring. At any rate I have abundance of hock. Then we keep better if not the best & most regular of hours,—we do not take our mittag—exactly at midday but at 2 or 3—& then I am away from evil company & bad example & too much wine,—in which particular I have brought in and carried a reformbill which I paid at Christmas. And then, biggest of all the thens, I am away from that dreadful personal pressure which made the light work heavy & the short work long.8 I have not the knocks and rings at the heart, as well as the gate, which startled the Present—nor the long forecoming shadows of the future Days, coming each after each, like the old English warriors bill in hand. There were the menaces of the harsh and the requests of the gentle each equally urgent, nay where all were [just?], the demand backed with kindness & consideration gave me most pain & inquietude. There was the agony of the potent will and the impotent power. I believe I may say I was never a selfish debtor for I paid away money when I had it & left myself serve, however, that though he apparently admired the "Bubbles" book, which has much of the spirit and the style of Sterne, he did not after all follow it very closely. In fact, while in general Hood preferred Steme to Smollett, he took the latter for his model in Up the Rhine, its epistolary form, its jocosity and horseplay, and even its characters strongly suggesting the influence of Humphrey Clinker. 6 Hood here refers to the debts which oppressed his last months in England. Little is known of the cause of these except that, as he intimates here, he had lived somewhat above his means at Lake House, Wanstead, a more pretentious establishment than he should have undertaken to maintain on the uncertain income of a writer, and that he suffered financial losses at the end of 1834. (See Introduction, p. 12.)

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penniless almost, exposed to mortifications & deep annoyance for trifles. M y struggles have been great & my sufferings unknown. I do not indeed forget my responsibilities here because they are not so often called for, & that I am out of the reach of legal measures, but I do feel released from the overpowering cares of a heavy expenditure & the transition from a hopeless to a hopeful state.6 In spite of some sharp pangs in the process I am ready to confess that the crisis which sent me here was a wholesome one; although to do myself justice, I must say that without the absolute necessity I should have adopted some other course than that I was upon. I have been blamed I think not deservedly about Lake House,7 by Judges from the event, but the truth is my prospects and standing were latterly completely changed—and I should have acted accordingly.8 You may doubt but I can prove this fact in favour of my prudence. Some parts of your letter have set me feeling or thinking or rather have stirred up my feelings & thoughts, for they have been mine before—and led me to speak thus. If not as a thoroughly independent man (I mean morally, for I am so here actually) I have felt at second hand the « T h e following lines were written on the side of the page beginning at this point: "dirty bread balls—toothpick stuck up in them &c.—I took a great disgust at him originally. I have just learned he is a Russian spy." T h e y are obviously out of context and their reference is obscure. There is, however, mention in another letter to Dilke (May 19, 1835) of a man in a restaurant in Coblenz who stuck toothpicks in dirty bread balls. (Memorials, I, 91-92.) 7 See p. 30. 8 Hood here refers to losses suffered in 1834 from the failure of a firm in which he apparently had invested money. (See Introduction, p. 12.) It is probable that the sum for which Hood was liable was not great, and that he chose, like Scott, to assume the whole responsibility rather than take the easy way of bankruptcy. Eventually he did pay all his debts, either before or just after his return to England.

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inestimable blessing of being free; which can hardly be said of anyone in England in the circumstances you allude to, to which I am in some degree a martyr. T h e struggle to maintain caste is indeed a bitter one & after all I fear we must say "le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle." T h e aspiration for "the peace the world cannot give" is a really heavenly one;—though I doubt whether the world cannot give a very heavenly peace, if a man seek it the right way. A t least I felt it could on my recovery for the first time in the balmy air of August taking a cheap ride to a cheap dinner along the banks of the beautiful Rhine to Capellen—& again further on in the harvest season thro the cornfield—vineyard—orchards to Braubach with all my happy healthy family in the same vehicle. It is true I miss home—old friends—books the communion of minds—Si I cannot, I would not forget I am an Englishman. I love my country dearly and a sonnet I shall send you is one from the heart's core not the head. Oh Dilke tis the pity of all the pity's of the world that "that sweet little Isle of our own" should be what it is! Jane says in one of her letters what a pity there is not a cheap Coblenz in England—but w h y should not all England be a Coblenz? There never was a more senseless cry raised than that for taxing absentees, nor more unjust! But for our intolerable taxation there would not be those absentees—indeed some of our imports make me blush. For instance the other day Rampone 9 the Italian took up a 9 Spelled "Ramponi" in the published letters in the Memorials. T h o u g h they had not much in common, he was one of the f e w "speaking" acquaintances of the Hoods during their first months in Coblenz. Hood had not much of an ear for languages and learned only a f e w words and phrases of German during his residence of two years in Coblenz. Rampone knew little English and Hood spoke no Italian, but they were able to converse in French which they both knew passably.

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pocket-book & in the first page there was price 2s/3d—duty is/3d.—I can hardly think but that many reformers must have been made amongst the thousands that come up the Rhine, by the direct contrast of cheap and dear. Indeed I said in a letter to Wright 1 0 that it was enough to cause a pocket-revolution, not that the people would wish to remove their monarch but that their sovereign should go further. 11 Perhaps the police did not understand my calembourg,12 for of all my letters this alone miscarried. Still, I do hope in the bottom of my heart to return honourably to England,—where I do believe a man may live comfortably, with some diminished feeling as to caste, if he preserve character. No matter how plainly he may live, should he pay his ivay he ought to be & I conceive would be, respectable. Still I shall be in no hurry to leave here—peace permitting—in duty to my children I ought to save all I can —but it is questionable when free to do so, whether for business sake I should not be amongst you. But of that hereafter. I am writing seriously because I trust my serious will give you as much comfort as my comic, for I conceive myself now to be in the right path. I would give anything for a day's talk or two—writing is so unsatisfactory but from what you have you must & perhaps can grasp the rest. I think there is no reason to be dissatisfied with the experiment. Coblenz is dearer than it was,—& will be cheaper. The English rush is falling off. But as it is we have done well.—In spite of illness inexperience and outfit—we have lived at but a trifle over 200 a year—I shall know better 10 11

93-) 12

John Wright. (See p. 27.) This pun was repeated in a letter to Mrs. Dilke.

(Memorials, I,

Hood meant to use the French word for pun—cdembour.

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when the Doctor & Apothecary's bills come in.13 All the three extra items I have given have been heavier than y o u might suppose. Rent is very dear here contrary to what y o u supposed. T h e population is not great but the large military garrison brings a quantity of officers into lodgings —indeed fresh houses are building—& furnished lodgings are especially rare. W h e n I came there were hardly any to be had. T h e best plan is to buy furniture and sell it b y auction when y o u go away, often for as much as it cost—but then I had not spare money so to lay by. Then till we got a kitchen the sending for portions to a Hotel cost us double to what we could cook at home—as to outfit we have had to buy glass, crockery, tinware &c., which does not come into their furnishing, & I had not a shirt in my bag that was wearable,—and we have bought children's clothes &c.— M y illness will cost something considerable tho cheap by comparison—and in order to discount my recovery, for I was dreadfully low and languid, I felt justified in taking more wine than I should have done if well—and it answered the purpose. Lastly experience has had to be paid for—as for instance our washing is now done at half the cost for the first three or four months & almost everything is down from 25 to 50 per cent. Indeed the dead set at the English is to an extent nobody but a resident can discover—& really disgusting considering the great benefactors they are to the place; and that it is accompanied with envy jealousy and detraction, utterly illiberal.14 I speak advisedly & from full 1 3 Hood was frequently ill during his residence in Coblenz. (See Introduction, pp. 10-11.) 1 4 Hood had a great deal to say of the fleecing of the English b y the Coblenzers. (See the letters to the Dilkes from Coblenz in Chapters II and III of the first volume of the Memorials.)

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knowledge. The Vertues 1 5 who resided here before us were done through thick and thin & yet he was a merchant, a smart active little man of the world with all his eyes about him & somewhat mean & with a family of 12 that made him cut close. But we know they were cheated. In fact the Coblenzers are Jews (if that be a term of reproach) stopping only short of giving you bad money or legerdemain in the giving the articles. Tis not cheating but next door to it. One day in joke I offered a fruit-girl !4 of what she asked. Jane said I had affronted her & she would never come again—but she did—& we have had a bargain in something like that proportion. I could forgive this—but spite of all their sentimentality there is no feeling. I told you I gave a dollar to two begging catholic priests as a token of my wish for universal toleration & liberality of opinion. Ever since every German beggar is sent up to me,—some literally better dressed than myself—but I have laid down as a rule not to give a pfenning the 12 th of a penny to any but a countryman. And why? Of all the cases I have had here, not one Englishman has ever owned to asking or at least getting anything of the Germans. The consequence is Mrs. Ainsworth 1 6 & myself, are the he and she English consuls of the town— Her husband is almost always travelling & she is the only other English resident. W e send our distressed country people to each other & they get relief on both sides which is all they get. My blood boils & I hope I shall never 15 A n English family w h o helped Hood get established in the house at 372 Castor H o f in Coblenz before Mrs. H o o d arrived with the children in the summer of 1835. (See Memorials, I, 58-59.) 16 Unidentified. Might she be the wife, or a relative, of William Harrison Ainsworth, who, before he had made a reputation as a novelist, published Hood's National Tales in 1827? Ainsworth had separated from his wife in 1835, but there is no evidence that she was living in Coblenz in 1836.

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hear again of subscriptions in England for distressed Germans. I will only mention one indisputable case. About three weeks ago Mrs. Ainsworth sent me a poor Irishman his wife and child—on their way to England— He had been engaged in a small manufactory of his own at Jonsac[?] in France which caught fire & he lost a child in the fire as well as having his arm burnt to the bone as he showed me in the attempt at rescue—and was deaf from falling on a beam. It was attested by Lord and Lady Ganville whose hand I know, Louis Philippe & a French Bishop & sundry English names.—The poor fellow, Irish all over,—in search of a rich English benefactor who lived at Frankfort had set out for Frankfort on the Maine instead of Frankfort on the Oder,— his wife lay in by the road,—and incurring some trifling debt in consequence even their shoes were sold & he was sent in irons to Frankfort. By the German law, necessaries cannot be sold for debt—chairs, table bed or working tools (England might take a hint here)—and Cartwright, our Minister at Frankfort was so indignant that he tore up Pat's passport (I suppose branded with poverty) & gave him another. In the list of donations he brought there was scarcely a German name—he said he had found it useless to ask them—and what had they done for him at Frankfort? Lest Cartwright should stir in it, the police took the mat out of his bed & never left him till the boat sailed with him hitherward.—Here he was advised by a German (who only gave advice) to apply to a rich wine merchant who spends six months a year in England & has made a fortune out of that little island. He gave him nothing. We gave him a trifle, & I gave him all the use of my name—& Jane had coffee made for the poor woman and her infant—they had to travel to Rotterdam on foot through bitter weather—& what was the result? The sneers of our servant—who could 3